“Peacemakers are those who love, defend and promote life in its fullness,” said Pope Benedict XVI in his Message for World Day of Peace 2013.

In the message, which was released today, the pope noted that “serious harm to justice and peace” comes from denying the true principles of respect for life and promotion of the “natural structure of marriage as the union of a man and a woman.”

Pope Benedict XVI, boldly stressed that pro-lifers are the ‘true peacemakers’ and that those who would support abortion promote a “false peace.”

The path to the attainment of the common good and to peace is above all that of respect for human life in all its many aspects, beginning with its conception, through its development and up to its natural end. True peacemakers, then, are those who love, defend and promote human life in all its dimensions, personal, communitarian and transcendent. Life in its fullness is the height of peace. Anyone who loves peace cannot tolerate attacks and crimes against life.